


Jericho

by sanguine_throne



Category: Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
Genre: F/M, SO SAD, Wow, also fear, and general angst, and sadness, baths, hooray for Sibylla, just excessive sibling bonding, kinda relationship?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 06:45:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguine_throne/pseuds/sanguine_throne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He cannot feel the heat of the bathwater. Isn't it ironic, how he feels so much in a body with no sense of touch?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jericho

Sibylla lifted the damp cloth to her brother’s shoulder. She crouched behind him, laving small circles into his flesh. The heat of the water was nearly too much for her, but Baldwin showed no signs of discomfort. Sibylla felt her mouth clench at the thought, and willed herself not to weep. 

“You seem tense, sire.”

After a pause, Baldwin’s reply came out in a quake, “What are we doing, my dear sister?”

“I am bathing you, my lord. What do you mean?”

A sigh escaped the young king, “You know what I mean. Why are we pretending? Why are we living our lives, acting as if nothing is wrong and that there is a future for us?”  
Sibylla could no longer stop the trembling of her lip, and she cursed herself for her weakness. I mustn’t do this. She thought. I have no right to weigh him down with my own worries. With a voice so full of confidence that it was nearly comical, Sibylla declared, “There is a future, love. A short future, I know, but like the crash of a wave on the shore, the briefest passions can be the most breathtaking.” Sibylla shuddered as she felt her brother’s slender finger wrap in her own. The silent king turned to her, gazing into azure eyes.

She breathed in his words as they came, “Do you remember the fable of Jericho?”

“My lord?”

“Jericho had walls as high as a mountain and as just as thick. The city was nigh impregnable, and her bastion was the ruin of many an army. The Israelite militia tried to take the city in ancient days, to no avail. Sister, I was Jericho. I was strong, brave, and noble. I was just as our father had wished.”

Sibylla traced a finger along the lines of her brother’s palm. The flesh felt warm from the waters of the bath, and a sense of anguish radiated from his body. How could she feel so much, she wondered, from a man who felt nothing, who could never feel?

“But sire, you talk as if you have crumbled. My dear, you have not.”

“Haven’t I?” The retort came with an edge that made Sibylla flinch back. Baldwin, having seen her temblor of doubt, slinked away from her. The man pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. Sibylla was ever stricken by how vulnerable the king could look, so unlike the title that he bore. 

“Jericho was unconquerable. Or so they thought. The parable goes further, dear sister. Joshua, a man of God, was finally able to take the city. Do you know how, sister?”

“I’m afraid I cannot recall it, my lord.”

“He ruined the walls of Jericho not with mortar or fire, but with forces invisible to man: sound. Joshua marched around the great citadel for seven days, blasting a trumpet horn. Eventually, the walls came tumbling down, the eruption of sound reverberating off the stone until it was reduced to rubble. Sister, my illness is the same. It is an invisible power, carried forth by who knows. God? The devil? All I know is that I too am tumbling down, and as I fall apart, I don’t want to crush you under the rubble.”

This man. This man who could conquer armies, who could bring men to ruin, was delicate. With what could only be described as the rupturing of her heart, Sibylla bowed her head in prayer. She was speaking to a dead man, she knew, and the pain that thought brought her threatened to pull her away in a tide of tears. 

Sibylla tentatively took the wash cloth in her left hand, and lifted her brother’s arm up with her right. Slowly, she lathered the fabric against his skin, and allowed herself to be lulled into calmness by his quiet, even breaths.


End file.
